


To Know

by baku_midnight



Category: Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dinotrap, Drama & Romance, M/M, Spark Bond, Spark-melding, talk of interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4267389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baku_midnight/pseuds/baku_midnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three times Dinobot asks Rattrap to spark-meld with him, and one time Rattrap says yes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Know

**Author's Note:**

> The world needs more DinoTrap. I fell in love with this pairing after rewatch; it's such a shame they ended so quickly. Sigh.

**1.**

 

The crude scent of interface hanging in the berth, Rattrap turned fretfully onto his back and attempted to replenish his air. He was cycling at an alarmingly high rate for a while there, his frame creaking and sparking all over, before overloading nearly offlined him, light and sound crashing in his sensors until he could barely parse where he was.

 

Dinobot rolled to the opposite side of the berth, fairing little better, it seemed, his broad chest plate shiny with lubricant and dented by a certain rodent’s claws. Rattrap eyed the thick plate out of the side of his optics and puffed with embarrassment, looking quickly away.

 

“Heh,” Rattrap forced out a sheepish chuckle, “sorry ’bout dat.”

 

Dinobot looked down over his damaged chassis. “This? Hardly a noteworthy injury.”

 

Rattrap scanned his own frame: he was looking a little worse for wear himself, as it was. He blamed the massive claw-shaped daggers his partner called “servos”, thick as Path Blaster barrels and twice as long, and twice as hard. Rattrap’s chassis was scratched and scraped all over, not to mention the dents in his rotators – upper _and_ lower – that came from Dinobot squeezing too hard.

 

All in all, Rattrap was just happy (and still mildly surprised) that they both made it out in one piece. With the veracity with which they faced each other a few cycles ago, he was pretty sure one or both of them was gonna end up slagged. Snarling, razor-sharp teeth tearing into rotator cups, massive, thick struts pinning narrow, rounded stabilizers… Rattrap’s pedal servos _in the air_ and Dinobot’s spike standing tall and straight as an…

 

If he could blush, Rattrap knew he would be right then. Instead, he shut down his optics and let himself relax in the shelter of the other Maximal’s sturdy body.

 

“There’s only one thing left to do,” Dinobot announced, just as Rattrap was beginning to slip into a strange simulation about an Earth cat chasing an Earth mouse. He rolled over so he was on one side, resting on one thick elbow joint.

 

Rattrap turned cautiously over, to see Dinobot click his spark chamber open, as easily as if he were doing routine maintenance. Just like that.

 

“Whoa, hey!” Rattrap protested, sitting up and backing immediately away. “Why’re you showin’ me dat? Are you outta your fragging mind?!”

 

Dinobot looked unfazed, creeping forward until he was only inches from Rattrap’s faceplate, his spark sitting exposed between them. “What’s the matter? Spark-melding is a common enough practice, at least among Predacons. I assume Maximals have a similar tradition.”

 

Rattrap shook his head, “yeah, but for…you know, really _serious_ partners,” he planted his hand on Dinobot’s chest plate to keep him from creeping any closer, “not for, you know, just a random tryst.”

 

Dinobot laughed aloud. “Random? Hardly. This has been a long time in preparation.”

 

Rattrap’s processor skipped as he realized that was probably the dino-brain’s way of being romantic, but he shook his head again. That was just…too much. Too serious. Nope, he was not ready for that.

 

“Don’t get me wrong, rodent,” Dinobot explained coarsely, circling one digit around the rim of Rattrap’s sealed spark chamber, inches away from his own naked spark, “I would merely suggest doing this for the practical applications. Spark-melding allows one partner to always sense where the other is; it would come in handy on joint missions.”

 

Rattrap hesitated, for a moment actually considering it. It would be a good idea for missions to always know where the giant raptor had snuck off to. And with the joint sensory feedback, he’d always know Dinobot’s status, so he wouldn’t have to worry about whether he was damaged or in pain…

 

Wait, “worry”?

 

Rattrap shook his head more fervently than before, placing a servo over his spark chamber, blocking it from Dinobot’s intrusion. No, he wasn’t ready to align his spark with _anyone_ ,especially with that of a _Pred,_ no matter how impressive his interfacing or convincing the look in his brilliant red optics… No way, no how.

 

“Eh, I don’t think so,” Rattrap announced, “I’m not about to go tying myself to some no-good, thick-skulled saurian with no manners,” he chided and nudged Dinobot roughly in the shoulder, pushing his arm away and carefully avoiding the electric touch of his spark.

 

“You ungrateful little vermin,” Dinobot hissed back, hiding away his spark with a growl of disgust. He grabbed immediately for Rattrap’s hip rotators and pulled their frames together, drawing a squeak of surprise from the smaller bot that put a mischievous smirk on his face, “I’ll show you _‘manners’_!”

 

 

**2.**

 

Rattrap hissed in pain as he shifted his grip up higher on Dinobot’s core, trying to support him as they dragged themselves back to the base. The last battle was hard on the both of them – who knew Inferno and Waspinator could cause so much damage when they got their acts together? Well, Rattrap and Dinobot didn’t, and they caustically took them on and ended up with barely functioning limbs for their trouble.

 

“How much…farther to the base…?” Dinobot asked, optics fading darker and darker with each step-drag the two bots undertook, “my…tracking sensors are...utterly offline…”

 

“Not much farther,” Rattrap answered quietly, keeping his optics focused on the landscape before him. Just a few more clicks and they’d be home, and able to hop in the CR chambers, to possibly stay there for a few decacycles, Rattrap thought, as his body reminded him of the exact extent of his injuries with every step he took.

 

His servos ached from supporting the other bot, who, if this was a perfect world, would be carrying _him_. Dinobot was at least three times his size, and currently leaning on him as if he was a transport vessel, his servos dragging weakly in the dirt as they crept along at the pace of an expired circuit board. It was a small miracle that the saurian could still operate his struts enough to keep them moving, because if his legs gave out now, Rattrap wouldn’t be able to move him.

 

His struts were throbbing and his processor speed had slowed to basically a stand-still, only able to focus on the functions of walking and mumbling the occasional admonishment in his teammate’s direction.

 

“I don’t think…I’ll make it back to base,” Dinobot elucidated groggily, head lolling down against his chest plate. “Perhaps…you should leave me where I fall, that this harsh terrain and our enemies might accept me.”

 

Rattrap frowned. “Now you’re just bein’ dramatic,” he chided, shifting his slipping grip once again. Dinobot’s chassis was sparking beneath a dislodged plate low on his abdomen, the scent of spoiled lubricant very near to Rattrap’s sensors.

 

“Leave me be,” Dinobot sulked, trying to be heroic even when there was no one around to see it except the one Maximal who could give a slag. Rattrap rolled his optics and nearly tripped when Dinobot’s stabilizers caught on the dirt and he dropped to his knees, hanging helplessly off of his partner’s smaller frame.

 

“Come on, get up,” Rattrap said, “we’re just a few clicks away from the base. Drag your lazy struts over—”

 

At that moment, Dinobot’s entire frame seemed to give out and he fell flat on his faceplate, dropping Rattrap with him. Rattrap squirmed and tried to free himself from under Dinobot’s arm around his neck, but even once he could get his servos under him, it was no use. He was down for the count, there was no getting up again.

 

Rattrap sighed a long-suffering sigh, “I hope you’re happy, Dino-breath,” he said, using the last of his strength to roll over on to his back and switch on his homing beacon, so that the rest of the Maximals could find the two of them. Then, he lied flat on his back, limbs akimbo, too underpowered to even lift off of the ground.

 

Dinobot fared little better, actually probably much worse, as he couldn’t even roll over, and was left prone on his front, half-buried in the dirt by his own weight. He looked utterly pathetic, and Rattrap would’ve laughed, if he didn’t look just as bad himself.

 

“You should’ve…left me…” Dinobot mumbled, optics dark, gears whirring slowly, “stubborn creature.”

 

Rattrap had no energy left to fight back, and merely swung an arm over to Dinobot’s body, smacking the back of his servo against the larger mech’s aft plate. “Whatever. I got us this far. Now we wait for Big-Bot and Rhinox to bail us out.”

 

For a moment, Rattrap considered the fact that Dinobot was less used to having teammates he could count on to save him when he was helpless. He imagined the Predacons were less willing to drop everything to rescue an offlined squadmate once he was beyond use as a fighter. That would explain the self-defeating, fatalistic attitude the raptor was currently displaying. Rattrap would’ve thought harder on it if he wasn’t too woozy from loss of mech fluid.

 

“If I…expire here,” Dinobot said in a near whisper, turning his faceplate to the side that was facing Rattrap, “I should like to be backed-up, so that my memories…might live on without me.”

 

Rattrap rolled his eyes some more. “Right, yeah. Sure. Lemme just get out my extra harddrive and start writing this down,” he winced as he tried to move his head, a jolt of pain swimming up his back and neck joints. “Get over yourself. We’ll be rescued in a few cycles, _then_ you can start working on your memoirs.”

 

“Perhaps,” Dinobot countered, insistently, “but maybe a more…permanent backing-up solution would be appropriate.”

 

Rattrap paused a moment to think before realizing what the larger bot was talking about. This would make it only the second time either of them ever brought it up: Rattrap because he was hoping the proposal was just some kind of post-overload hallucination, and Dinobot, hopefully, because he knew the answer was going to be swift and definitive.

 

“Ah, no,” Rattrap replied, “no, you’re not touchin’ my spark.”

 

“You must grant an offlining bot’s final wish,” Dinobot hissed, “it would be the honorable thing to do!”

 

The way he talked about it, it was like it was simply a practical process, rather than a deeply emotionally-meaningful decision made between two very dedicated bots. It was serious—too serious for these circumstances. Too serious for Rattrap for now, maybe _forever._

 

“Slag off,” Rattrap retorted, joints creaking with damage, “and let me rest.”

 

“Rattrap,” Dinobot whispered, the rare use of his name setting off all sorts of flags in Rattrap’s system. His processor spun hot and he forced his optics off. “You’re the only whom I would trust to do this. The only one…I _know_ …must be my…”

 

Rattrap thought for a moment about pretending he had gone offline, to avoid answering. How was he supposed to deal with a confession like that? He could barely even say the _words_ “spark-melding”, much less think about actually _doing_ the thing with another Transformer. And now, he’s getting all these dramatic confessions of trust and respect and…probably a lot of other things he didn’t even want to think about!

 

Dinobot’s mainframe must’ve been fried, that was the only answer. His processors were running sloppy with damage, making his operating system spout out these random, ridiculous things about “spark-melding” and “trust” and “only one”…

 

“You’re just damaged,” Rattrap insisted coldly, despite the way his CPU was buzzing warm with anxiety, “talkin’ crazy talk. Now, offline already and give me some peace.”

 

“I am…perfectly lucid,” Dinobot replied, but given the way he could barely string a full sentence together without stopping, Rattrap doubted it. It was much easier to doubt his conviction than accept the fact that he might possibly be serious about this…

 

Suddenly, Optimus’s voice crackled over Rattrap’s comlink, echoing inside his helm like the jarring sound of loose nuts and bolts scattering on a steel-plate floor. He flinched as Optimus asked his status and informed them that a flight team was on their way.

 

“Read ya loud and clear, Big Bot,” Rattrap answered, “we’re about four clicks out. As for status? Well, I feel like I spent a cycle getting intimate with a _hydraulic press_ , if you know what I’m sayin’, and ol’ Dino-breath is…” he looked briefly over to see that the larger bot had taken his advice and had fallen into stasis, “he’s about the same.”

 

“Hold tight, we’ll be there soon,” Optimus replied, and Rattrap muttered his affirmative, letting his optics go dark. He figured that once Dinobot’s systems were back to optimal operating, he’d forget about the whole “melding” thing altogether. Considering that Rattrap avoided him after he got out of the CR chamber like a cat avoids water, he didn’t get to find out.

 

 

**3.**

 

Dinobot knew he’d done some damage with his latest mission; his betrayal of the Maximals for a second time would not go over easily, but he did not regret his decision to find out the true potential of the golden discs. And there were some things that were worth more than friendship or trust – things like ensuring the safety of the inhabitants of this planet, for one – or so he repeatedly told himself, ever since the moment Rattrap had expressed such distrust in him when Dinobot’s weapon was aimed directly at his faceplate.

 

He couldn’t get that stare out of his mind. Unwavering, and rather than hateful, disappointed. Dinobot had disappointed plenty of mechs in his life, Predacon and Maximal alike, and none so many as in the previous few cycles…yet the way that Rattrap spoke to him afterwards, without a hint of enjoyment or harmony in his tone, was heartbreaking.

 

He knew he had to fix things, and not just for the Earth and its people. Rattrap needed to know that his trust in Dinobot was not unfounded, and the damage he’d caused was not his fault. All the Earth-day the rodent had been avoiding his gaze, ever since their initial confrontation in the hall where Rattrap had spelled out exactly how let down he felt, the bot had scarcely said a word to nor about him. Where Dinobot was used to Rattrap catching his attention whenever he walked in the room with a tease or an insult of some kind, instead he was met with silence and persistent ignorance of his presence.

 

Before he prepared to leave on his own, he prepared to confront Rattrap one last time, by catching his attention in the hall. The rat merely ignored him, brushed the heavy raptor servo off of his shoulder, and kept walking. Dinobot followed and tried again, but the smaller mech said nothing in reply and continued towards his berth.

 

“Rattrap, I must talk to you,” Dinobot asserted, to a mute Maximal’s back, “wait! Slag your stubbornness!”

 

Dinobot reached out and grabbed the bot’s shoulder, recalling an injury he’d left there previously under much different circumstances, and when he met resistance, threw his smaller frame into the wall, the resounding _crack_ echoing throughout the Axalon.

 

“Let me talk to you,” Dinobot persisted, and Rattrap simply glared at him, optics dark with fury and disgust.

 

“Or what,” he spouted, “you gonna try an’ slag me again?”

 

Dinobot’s processor sparked, feeling the hydraulics tubes in his throat clench, “that was never my intention—!”

 

“Then what?” Rattrap near-shouted, “’cause it sure looked like that _was your intention_ when you had your blaster pointed in my face!”

 

“I never intended to harm you, I was merely working with Megatron to expose…” he trailed off hopelessly, optics slipping over his shoulder.

 

“Expose what?” Rattrap asked, and when Dinobot didn’t respond, expelled coolant with a huff. “Thought so.”

 

“I cannot tell you what I was doing with Megatron,” Dinobot whispered, “lest he realize we know his plot,” he tried to put a servo on Rattrap’s shoulder, but it was smacked away with a clack of metal on metal. “I can only tell you that I did not betray _you_.”

 

Rattrap looked like his joints were all welded together, he stood so rigidly and uncomfortably in Dinobot’s presence. He was angry, and disappointed…but worse, was he…afraid of Dinobot? The former Predacon’s gears shuddered to consider it. He wanted nothing more, at that moment, than for Rattrap to insult him casually and nudge his chest plate with his elbow joint, and to expect Dinobot to do the same in return.

 

“Yeah, well, words are words,” Rattrap answered with a stiff shrug, “and you know what they say about pictures. And you sure painted a pretty one when you were pointin’ a gun at me with Megatron standin’ over your shoulder.

 

“You know,” he continued, sadness unchecked in his voice, which dropped low and serious, “the worst part is, I was actually thinkin’ about it. After you asked the second time. I thought you were outta your mind, but then I started thinking about it, and thought you could…actually be serious about it. About me.”

 

Dinobot’s processor sped up, his intake racing to join it as Rattrap confessed. He felt as if his stabilizers had melted to the floor, he couldn’t move.

 

“I don’t normally, you know,” he shrugged, “with _anybody_. But I thought, eh, maybe this time, I could do it. But then I remembered: this,” he pointed at the floor, indicating the scene playing out between them, “is _exactly_ why I _don’t_.”

 

Dinobot’s servos trembled at his sides. “We can still do it. We will join sparks, and then you will know my motives to be true,” he offered, nearly leaping forward with anticipation, causing Rattrap to shrink back against the wall in fright. The distress tensing his joints appalled Dinobot, who wanted nothing more than to see him light-hearted again.

 

“Ah, no,” Rattrap replied, “I don’t think so,” he waved his servos before his face.

 

“Join with me,” Dinobot insisted, “then you will know my spark. No matter where I go, separated or together, you will know with whom I am allied.” He walked closer, backing Rattrap further into the wall, drawing nearer to his spark chamber, making the bot squirm with every step, until with a voice tinged with acid, he replied,

 

“One step closer, and I pull out my gun,” he put a hand against his thigh holster, expression deadly, and Dinobot retreated. He backed away until Rattrap was free to step away from him and continue down the hall, not putting his back to the ex-Pred.

 

“I ain’t letting a filthy traitor near my spark,” he hissed, “leave me alone. I’m done with you.”

 

Then he turned, putting his back to Dinobot, in the same way he stopped resisting when the two dinosaurs had cornered him with weapons drawn. His posture all but said that he was ready to die, knowing he was right all along, and had nothing left to lose. Dinobot watched him go until he was out of sight, and then with sword in hand, left the base without another word to anyone.

 

 

**4.**

Dinobot didn’t expect he would live to feel his systems failing. Overriding the last safety lock on his operating system, and then continuing to function, was just as painful as he’d been warned about in his training days, where as a Predacon, he was taught to only ever use it if it was to protect the life and glory of their leader, Megatron. But now, he found something more important to expend the last of his energy on, and did not regret it.

 

He fell back in the dirt, sensors vaguely aware that Optimus and Rattrap had found him, but too late to save him. His spark was utterly spent; even if it were transplanted into another body – had they any lying around – it would quickly expire in that body, as well. There was nowhere else for him to go but to join the Matrix, with his ancestors and comrades.

 

Optimus stood and called to the rest of the team, normally certain and secure voice broken into panic as he shouted over his comlink. Rattrap rushed down the hill to Dinobot, knee-joints skidding in the dirt, kicking up pebbles and earth in his wake as he fell to Dinobot’s side.

 

“Hey,” Rattrap said softly, in that soft tone of voice Dinobot so despised, which said “pity” and “hopelessness”. He placed a hand on his wide chest plate, feeling how cold the metal was under his touch. “You’re okay. You’re okay, now.”

 

Dinobot smiled gently, optics fading to a gentle burgundy rather than their usual fierce red, “I am finished. My part in this fight is over. Do not forget me—”

 

Rattrap shook his head. Just more dramatics, that was it! He just needed a touch-up in the CR chamber, and he’d be back on his feet in no time. “No, you’re not goin’ anywhere,” he insisted, “you’ll be just fine.”

 

“My body is spent, and my spark nearly cannot stand the strain,” Dinobot replied, raising his long-nailed servo for Rattrap to take, which he squeezed in both of his own. The smaller mech shook his head frantically, pressing his forehead into Dinobot’s claws.

 

“Hey, no,” Rattrap said suddenly, head snapping up, fluid gathering in his optic wells, “we can meld our sparks. Yeah, we can! I’ll take the damaged part, and give you half of mine—”

 

“No,” Dinobot said firmly, nearly choking as mech fluid flooded his intake valves, making him groggy and weak, “it cannot work.”

 

“Yeah, it can!” Rattrap insisted, putting Dinobot’s servo near to his spark chamber access, tapping the digits against the metal with a _thunk_. “I’ll do it, I mean it. I want to. Just open up, okay, you gotta, you gotta…” he trailed off as his voice was overtaken by sadness and he could no longer speak but in small whimpers and squeaks. Fluid dribbled from his optic wells and streaked his faceplate.

 

“Even if I could raise a single digit to touch your charming – though still rodent-like – face,” Dinobot explained, smile molding his faceplate, “I would not join my spark to yours. I would not hurt you.”

 

Rattrap couldn’t say a thing. He didn’t know what to think. All he knew was that Dinobot had been the one pestering him to join sparks, and now _he_ was saying “no”? It always felt like there would be more time, more time to figure out just what was this _thing_ between them, and how it made his processor ramp up speed just to look at the raptor’s face, how he’d never felt so caught up in another bot in his entire life…

 

“Losing a spark-mate is a pain worse than I would inflict, even on you,” Dinobot explained with a gentle tease, “I would not subject you to permanently halving your spark, just so that my memory might live on a little longer.”

 

“Then how am I gonna…” Rattrap whispered, and Dinobot saw that over his shoulder, the rest of the Maximals were giving the two of them their space. He was silently grateful, and not for the first time, for Optimus Primal. “I don’t want to lose you!”

 

“Keeping my spark when it can no longer stay away from the Matrix,” Dinobot insisted, “would be too much for you. You would be beyond repair.”

 

“You don’t know a thing about me,” Rattrap replied, placing a hand on Dinobot’s faceplate, smoothing down the side. The saurian kept their eyes locked, even as his optic sensors faded, until the smaller bot’s frame was little more than an infrared blur.

 

“I know enough,” he answered, as the rest of the Maximals came down over the hill and into the valley where he lay.

 

He said goodbye to each of them, but kept his gaze trained mostly on Rattrap, watching him, the way his optics moved, the way his face plate reflected the fading light over the Earth. He wanted to commit Rattrap’s face to memory; his last memory.

 

It would be a long time until Rattrap could agree that Dinobot had convinced him to make the right decision that day. Having to turn away his spark-mate was way worse than losing him after the bond was made, he thought for a long time, but Dinobot would not lead him astray. He realized eventually that it was the last gift that Dinobot chose to give him: a safe spark, warmed by his love but not overtaken by it.


End file.
